Benefits

  • January 27, 2025

    SEC OKs Nasdaq Pulling Diversity Rules After 5th Circ. Loss

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has greenlighted Nasdaq's proposal to undo the exchange's rules requiring that companies listed on it disclose board diversity data, following a narrow, en banc ruling from the Fifth Circuit last month finding the rules ran afoul of federal securities law.

  • January 27, 2025

    Chimney Co. Can't Beat Suit Alleging Inflated $25M ESOP Sale

    An Indiana federal judge declined to toss a suit claiming a chimney product manufacturer had its employee stock ownership plan purchase company shares through an inflated $25 million deal, ruling there's enough detail showing the leaders of the business may have known the deal was flawed.

  • January 27, 2025

    Suit Over Gender Dysphoria Rule Frozen After Trump Order

    A Texas federal judge paused a Republican lawsuit challenging a former President Joe Biden-era U.S. Health and Human Services rule defining gender dysphoria as a disability, after the agency said it needed to evaluate the impact of a new executive order targeting "gender ideology."

  • January 27, 2025

    Wesco Will Pay $2.25M To End 401(k) Fee Suit

    Electrical equipment company Wesco Distribution Inc. will pay $2.25 million to end a proposed class action from employee 401(k) plan participants who alleged their retirement plan was mismanaged, after the Third Circuit had revived the suit in May.

  • January 27, 2025

    Steel Company's ERISA Suit Booted For Lack Of Specifics 

    A Florida federal judge dismissed a proposed class action alleging a steel manufacturer loaded its employee 401(k) plan with exorbitant fees and risky investment options, ruling the worker leading the suit needed to provide more information about his efforts to raise concerns to the plan's committee.

  • January 25, 2025

    Trump Revives Federal Anti-Abortion Policies

    President Donald Trump issued two executive orders Friday targeting abortion inside and outside the United States, reinstating a ban on federal funding for certain international family planning groups and revoking a pair of Biden-era directives supporting abortion access.

  • January 24, 2025

    Ill. Justices OK Workers' Injury Suits Over Dormant Diseases

    The Illinois Supreme Court answered the Seventh Circuit's call on Friday to clarify the state's Workers' Occupational Diseases Act in a widow's wrongful death lawsuit against Goodrich Corp., finding the statute can apply to claims for asbestos-related cancer and other diseases that manifest belatedly despite the statute's other temporal restrictions.

  • January 24, 2025

    J&J Escapes Part Of Worker's Drug Benefits Suit, For Now

    A suit alleging Johnson & Johnson overcharged employees through a prescription drug benefits program was partially tossed Friday, with a New Jersey federal judge ruling the suing worker failed to show the court could provide any remedies on her claims that plan members overpaid for medicine.

  • January 24, 2025

    Employer Groups Back Tossing Pension Annuity Suit In NY

    Three employer trade groups are backing Bristol-Myers Squibb and investment manager State Street as they fight claims brought by retirees of the pharmaceutical giant that the companies violated federal benefits law by converting workers' pension benefits into annuity insurance contracts.

  • January 24, 2025

    5th Circ. Upholds Tossing Medicare Rate Policy Challenge

    A Fifth Circuit panel said it agrees with a Texas federal judge that a lawsuit brought by four anesthesia practices claiming a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services policy will cost them $4 million in reduced reimbursements is statutorily barred.

  • January 24, 2025

    10 AGs Target Major Banks Over DEI, ESG Initiatives

    Major financial institutions in the United States, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, could have made business decisions to follow political agendas, attorneys general from 10 states said, urging them to tackle a series of questions about their diversity and inclusion policies.

  • January 24, 2025

    Lutnick Settles Chancery Suit Ahead Of Commerce Hearing

    Billionaire Howard L. Lutnick, President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of commerce, has settled a Delaware Court of Chancery derivative suit accusing the Newmark Inc. principal executive officer of "blowing smoke" around his part in a $500 million stock-value gain in order to receive a $50 million bonus.

  • January 24, 2025

    Dentons Adds 2 Healthcare Attys From Katten In NY

    Dentons announced that it has added two attorneys with extensive experience in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, regulatory compliance and False Claims Act defense as New York-based partners in its healthcare practice.

  • January 23, 2025

    Wells Fargo Workers Score Class Cert. In Stock Option Suit

    Former employees of Wells Fargo & Co. have received certification for their proposed class in litigation in Minnesota federal court alleging the bank used dividends earned by its employee stock ownership fund to defray its 401(k) matching obligations.

  • January 23, 2025

    Retired Pittsburgh Cops Overpaid For Healthcare, Panel Rules

    Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court has ruled that the city of Pittsburgh overcharged retired police officers for healthcare benefits, rejecting the city's argument to overturn an arbitrator's award in favor of the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge as too expansive.

  • January 23, 2025

    Advanced Auto Parts Gets Brakes Tapped On Investor Suit

    Advanced Auto Parts beat back a proposed class action on Thursday that accused the company and its top brass of misleading investors about the failure of a new pricing strategy and purposefully inflating the impact of price reductions, with a North Carolina federal judge finding that the suit failed to plead knowledge of wrongdoing.

  • January 23, 2025

    Del. Justices Won't Revive Skechers Inc. Aircraft Use Suit

    Delaware's top court on Thursday grounded with scant comment a derivative suit appeal filed on behalf of a stockholder of comfort shoemaker Skechers USA Inc. seeking revival of a dismissed lower court case alleging failure to control top executives' use of corporate aircraft for personal travel.

  • January 23, 2025

    Yellow Corp. Says It Acted In Good Faith With WARN Notices

    Defunct trucking company Yellow Corp. told a Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday that its last delivery was made the day before it laid off 22,000 union workers, making it a "liquidating fiduciary" that would not be liable for inadequate mass-layoff notices under the WARN Act.

  • January 23, 2025

    Fla. Insurer Tries To Toss Suit Blaming It For Black Mold Death

    A Sunshine State insurer accused of wrongfully causing the death of a woman who died from black mold contamination after it didn't send a promised team to her home to fix hurricane damage has urged a Florida judge to dismiss the suit, calling it a bad-faith case in disguise trying to get around an already pending contract dispute.

  • January 23, 2025

    7th Circ. Says Ex-Manager's Noncompete Allowed Clawback

    The Seventh Circuit reopened an auto parts company's lawsuit seeking to recover proceeds a plant manager got from selling shares he was granted, saying Delaware's top court has made clear that a lower court shouldn't have analyzed whether the forfeiture-for-competition provisions of the stock agreements were reasonable.

  • January 23, 2025

    AT&T, Fidelity Beat Retiree's Suit Over Mistaken Benefits

    A retiree who claimed he was misled by AT&T and Fidelity into thinking he was owed more retirement benefits than he received cannot proceed with his suit, a Colorado federal judge ruled, stating that the snafu resulted in a miscommunication, not a violation of federal benefits law.

  • January 23, 2025

    UnitedHealthcare Settles Proton Beam Coverage Suit

    UnitedHealthcare has agreed to resolve a proposed class action claiming it unlawfully denied coverage of a proton beam cancer treatment after wrongly labeling it as experimental, the insurance company and plan participants told a Massachusetts federal court.

  • January 22, 2025

    Boeing Rips Investors' Class Cert Bid In 737 Max Blowout Suit

    Boeing told a Virginia federal judge that pension funds cannot reverse-engineer sweeping securities fraud claims based on last year's Alaska Airlines midair blowout incident, saying their bid to certify a class of investors who were purportedly misled by Boeing's assurances of the 737 Max jets' safety must be rejected.

  • January 22, 2025

    Justices Seem Willing To Reopen Cornell Workers' ERISA Suit

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed inclined to revive a federal benefits lawsuit from Cornell University workers alleging their retirement plan was mismanaged and charged excessive fees, with several justices appearing open to arguments that the Second Circuit overreached when it shut down the case.

  • January 22, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Express Scripts Generics Dispute

    A Ninth Circuit panel won't renew a suit accusing Express Scripts of shortchanging a Seattle pharmacy on reimbursements for the generic version of HIV/AIDS drug Truvada, finding that only the name-brand prescription was listed in their contract as a "covered specialty medication" entitled to a higher payback rate.  

Expert Analysis

  • How Attys Can Avoid Pitfalls When Withdrawing From A Case

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    The Trump campaign's recent scuffle over its bid to replace its counsel in a pregnancy retaliation suit offers a chance to remind attorneys that many troubles inherent in withdrawing from a case can be mitigated or entirely avoided by communicating with clients openly and frequently, says Christopher Konneker at Orsinger Nelson.

  • Using A Children's Book Approach In Firm Marketing Content

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    From “The Giving Tree” to “Where the Wild Things Are,” most children’s books are easy to remember because they use simple words and numbers to tell stories with a human impact — a formula law firms should emulate in their marketing content to stay front of mind for potential clients, says Seema Desai Maglio at The Found Word.

  • Series

    Being An EMT Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While some of my experiences as an emergency medical technician have been unusually painful and searing, the skills I’ve learned — such as triage, empathy and preparedness — are just as useful in my work as a restructuring lawyer, says Marshall Huebner at Davis Polk.

  • How HHS Discrimination Rule Affects Gender-Affirming Care

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new final rule, which reinterprets the Affordable Care Act's anti-discrimination provision, greatly clarifies protections for gender-affirming care and will require compliance considerations from sponsors and administrators of most group health plans, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

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    A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

  • Series

    Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System

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    As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.

  • Asset Manager Exemption Shifts May Prove Too Burdensome

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    The U.S. Department of Labor’s recent change to a prohibited transaction exemption used by retirement plan asset managers introduces a host of new costs, burdens and risks to investment firms, from registration requirements to new transition periods, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • 7 Effects Of DOL Retirement Asset Manager Exemption Rule

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    The recent U.S. Department of Labor amendment to the retirement asset manager exemption delivers several key practical impacts, including the need for managers, as opposed to funds, to register with the DOL, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Kansas Workers' Comp. Updates Can Benefit Labor, Business

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    While the most significant shake-up from the April amendment to the Kansas Workers Compensation Act will likely be the increase in potential lifetime payouts for workers totally disabled on the job, other changes that streamline the hearing process will benefit both employees and companies, says Weston Mills at Gilson Daub.

  • Del. Ruling Highlights M&A Deal Adviser Conflict Disclosures

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    The Delaware Supreme Court recently reversed the Court of Chancery's dismissal of challenges to Nordic Capital's acquisition of Inovalon, demonstrating the importance of full disclosure of financial adviser conflicts when a going-private merger seeks business judgment rule review, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • How FTC's Noncompete Rule May Affect Exec Comp Packages

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    In the event the Federal Trade Commission's final noncompete rule goes into effect as currently contemplated, companies will need to take stock of how they structure post-employment executive compensation arrangements, such as severance agreements and clawbacks, says Meredith O'Leary at King & Spalding.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • Opinion

    SEC Should Be Allowed To Equip Investors With Climate Info

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule to require more climate-related disclosures will provide investors with much-needed clarity, despite opponents' attempts to challenge the rule with misused legal arguments, say Sarah Goetz at Democracy Forward and Cynthia Hanawalt at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change.

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